Today is New Year's Eve. Here's a memory that jumps up as one of the good ones... good that I don't have to live through it again!
Right from the beginning I knew that baby #2 was not going to have an easy life. At two weeks old I had decided to get out of the house and take our 3 yr old to the park… mommy needed out of the house. It was a beautiful day, my first try at taking two kids out in public. It was OK but I felt so pulled apart… 3 year old wanted all the attention because that’s what he was used to. I had to keep helping him down the slide which meant I was abandoning my two week old infant who was lying on a blanket… I would have never left my first child unattended at two weeks old. Now, I was maybe two feet from him (probably less) but I felt like someone could grab him and run away and being in my post-pregnancy state I felt tubby and knew I wouldn’t be able to tackle whichever NFL player was lurking behind the play structure. It was awful. Then the 3 year old needed to go potty… rush, rush, rush. This was exciting because he had just decided to not wear diapers anymore because only babies wear diapers… thank goodness we had a baby or he might still be in diapers and using a pacifier!

Anyways, I put the baby in the car seat thing, gathered all of our stuff in a hurry (for the first outing I was prepared for rain, sleet and snow and two weeks without access to a grocery store… it took me a minute). We trotted over to the bathrooms. Baby decides he needs held while we’re in the gross bathroom… I don’t want to put anything on the floor but I do. Oh man, I would never have done that with one child. Did you know it’s physically impossible to pull up your pants and button them without the use of two hands? It is. One time I actually put our first child between my legs and held him their while I buttoned my pants just so I wouldn’t have to put him on the floor. Now I see they have cute little seats in the bathrooms so mommies can buckle their baby into a safe little space… I totally missed my get-rich idea on that one! Anyways, I digress… are you still reading this? Stay with me here… I’m getting to my point…

In the bathroom back at the park 3 year old is done, but needs help with the toilet paper and his pants. So I have to put fussy baby down into the car seat which is now totally contaminated because it’s been sitting on the floor for 5 minutes. All I want to do it get out of there. I’ve wiped 3 year old, we’ve washed hands and I just want out. So I grab my poor baby who’s in the contaminated car seat and all the other equipment and we head out. Three steps out of the bathroom and I feel the car seat handle shift. What the? The car seat just ejected my two week old baby out onto the grass! Are you kidding me? Now I have a screaming baby who has every right to be upset, dirty hands, well - dirty everything. Plus my 3 year old is running towards the slide and the NFL tackler dude that I’m going to have to take down with my bare hands if he looks cross eyed at my kids although I haven’t actually confirmed his existence but don’t be fooled, I can sense him. I decided it was time to go home.

All I wanted to do was go outside.

I hope you’ve enjoyed a glimpse into some of my fondest mommy memories, Happy New Year!